Healthcare Delivery: Federal Gov’t Disburses N130bn Through BHCPF

The director, Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), Dr Mukhtar Muhammad, said the federal government has disbursed the sum of N130.8 billion for healthcare delivery through the BHCPF since its commencement in 2019 till date.

Dr Muhammad, who disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja, said that the federal government has funded over 8,000 facilities and expanded insurance coverage to 1.8 million individuals through the BHCDF disbursement.

He also said that another N12.9 billion was yet to be disbursed for 2024.

“So far, BHCPF has funded over N130bn to 8,000+ facilities and expanded insurance coverage to 1.8m Individuals,” he said.

BHCPF is a key component of Nigeria’s National Health Act 2014, designed to ensure that every Nigerian access basic healthcare services, particularly the poor and vulnerable populations.

The fund is disbursed through the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), National Emergency Medical Treatment Committee (NEMTC) and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

A breakdown of the disbursements over the years showed that N14 billion was disbursed in 2019, N13 billion in 2020, N34 billion in 2021, N13 billion in 2022, N31 billion in 2023 and N26.8 billion disbursed so far in 2024.

Meanwhile, the state governments are expected to meet certain conditions to be able to access the fund. The BHCPF boss said: “First, you must provide what we call counterpart fund, and must bring your facility up to a certain standard so that you can get the fund to start providing services.

“So, it is not just every Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) we are going to take, as the centres must meet the minimum standard requirements.”

On NPHCDA’s gateway disbursement, the Director, Special Duties, Dr Oritseweyinmi Ogbe, said 45 per cent was allocated through the agency for provision of essential medicines, vaccines and consumables in PHCs.

He added that the fund was also allocated for the provision and maintenance of facilities, equipment and transportation in PHCs and development of human resource for PHC.

“The gateway has established a national mechanism for inter-governmental transfer across the three tiers of government to improve health outcomes at frontline PHC facilities.

“Provided operational funds (DFF) to PHC across the country initially targeting at least one BHCPF PHC per political ward, alongside supporting the engagement of midwives to ensure safe delivery, across states; as well as other community-based health workers, he explained,” he stated.

On PHC revitalisation, he said based on the data evidence, the NPHCDA was leveraging all available resources for PHC revitalisation inclusive of BHCPF revitalisation funds earlier sent to states and IMPACT programme funding, in close collaboration with states and Partners based on SWAp.

However, he noted that the gateway could not realise its full potential, mainly due to: sub-optimal focus on performance management and results, weak visibility impeding on transparency and accountability, funding was solely input oriented with no performance based tracking mechanism.